Part 47 (2/2)

He took a step back from the pedestal and would have staggered if the taller man had not caught his arm.

”You should sit for a while,” Mr. Bennick said. ”I will get you another sherry, if you like.”

”Yes,” Rafferdy said. ”I think that...yes, thank you.”

He sank into a chair near a bookshelf and held a hand to his head. His temples throbbed, and his stomach heaved to and fro like a s.h.i.+p on a stormy sea. Outside the window, lamplighters moved down the street.

They must have stood there reading for hours. More than once Rafferdy had wanted to turn his head, to move away; however, he had been unable to pull his gaze from the book. The spidery lines of ink had been a dark path that, once embarked upon, could not be turned from; he could only keep following it forward.

All the same, it had not been easy to read the book, and not only because of the archaic language or the queerly slanted script. He knew it had only been his imagination, an impression encouraged by the strange odors that rose from the book and perfused his brain, but the words had seemed to writhe on the parchment, as if unwilling to let themselves be read even as they bound the eye and kept it from looking elsewhere.

Now, as he sat, sweat cooled on Rafferdy's brow, leaving him clammy. Mr. Bennick locked the book, then poured a gla.s.s of sherry and handed it to him. Rafferdy gulped it quickly, lest he spill it.

”Do you understand what you read?” Mr. Bennick's sallow face was impa.s.sive as always, but there was a glint in his deep-set eyes.

Rafferdy set down his gla.s.s and drew out a handkerchief to mop his brow. ”I don't know. Yes-that is, I think so. Some of it, at least.”

What they had read had been like a diary, a journal written by h.o.r.estes of his journeys to far-off places and down shadowed roads. However, where exactly h.o.r.estes' travels had taken him, Rafferdy wasn't certain. The author wrote in fractured ramblings, and he called nothing by its proper name. I followed the gaze of the eye of Sarkos for forty nights, he wrote, or, I walked through the s.h.i.+fting fields of the Copper Sea until I saw the two towers of Baelthus thrusting up to stab the sky.

Rafferdy had seldom paid attention at university. However, he vaguely recalled from a lecture on astrography that Sarkos was a Tharosian deity as well as the name of a constellation of stars that was seldom glimpsed in Altania, and then only on the horizon, but which rose high into the sky in the far south of the empire. As for the towers of Baelthus, they were supposed to be the two mountains that held up one end of the sky, raised by one of the Magnons, G.o.dlike beings who existed before the deities of Tharos.

There were countless more such references in the Codex-the author wrote of following the sword of Actheon and digging deep beneath the belly of Ranramarath-but none of these things meant anything to Rafferdy.

He put away his handkerchief. ”I don't suppose it would have been magickal enough for him to have just written, To find the secret cave, go south for a hundred miles and then turn left at the rock that looks like an old man's nose or some such thing.”

Mr. Bennick gave a sharp smile. ”That would be easier, wouldn't it? However, to protect their secrets and to make sure they did not fall into the hands of those who might misuse them, ancient magicians often wrote in a kind of code, referring to symbols that only another who had spent long years studying the arcane would understand. Unfortunately, the meaning of many of the references h.o.r.estes and others used is lost to us now. It is one of the greatest tasks of a magician, to spend long hours poring through old books, searching for clues to the meaning of these symbols and codes.”

”Sounds delightful,” Rafferdy said.

Mr. Bennick laughed, though it was a rueful sound. ”It is, as you can well imagine, tedious work. Long years can be spent following a line of investigation, pursuing some fragment of knowledge, only to discover in the end it is fruitless. Yet on those rare occasions when you stumble upon some scroll that has not seen light in a thousand years and in its faded words learn something that has long been lost-there is no thing in the world that could give greater satisfaction.”

As he spoke, Mr. Bennick's left hand went to his right, stroking the fourth finger. Rafferdy watched with interest.

The other man seemed to notice his gaze. He pulled his hands apart.

”Well, I know one thing that would give me great satisfaction,” Rafferdy said. Finding he was steady enough, he went to the sideboard to refill his gla.s.s. He took a sip, and the throbbing in his head eased a fraction.

”He was mad, wasn't he?” Rafferdy turned around. ”h.o.r.estes, I mean. He was positively frothing.”

Mr. Bennick shrugged. ”Perhaps he was mad. Or perhaps he had simply learned things, seen things, that a man's mind was not crafted to grasp or endure.”

”Not crafted to endure? I don't follow you.”

”Do you know there are colors beyond the ones we can see?” Mr. Bennick said. ”Naturalists have discovered insects that dwell in the deepest caves and that can follow sources of light that are utterly invisible to our eyes. In the same way, there is knowledge that is older than mankind-knowledge that, like that light, is beyond our natural ability to perceive, for never in all the years of our formation have we encountered it. It is the magician's task, like that of the insect, to seek out that strange light, to try to comprehend it.”

Rafferdy did not care for this comparison. ”On the contrary,” he said, ”I'm quite sure knowledge was invented by man, like the wheel and spoons and chocolate. In which case, how can there be knowledge older than man himself? Besides, I'm certain the bishop at St. Galmuth's will be happy to inform you that G.o.d created man in the beginning, so there can't be anything more ancient.”

”Before G.o.d there were the G.o.ds-the deities of Tharos. Before them came the Magnons, whom the Tharosian G.o.ds slew. And there are beings older yet, G.o.ds whose names have never been forgotten because they were never known.” He returned to the Codex on the pedestal, resting a hand on it. ”Names that, if you were to hear them spoken, would be so queer, so alien, so unlike anything you or a thousand ancestors before you had ever heard, that the very sound of them might shock your mind so profoundly as to render you incapable of speech, or motion, or thought. All the same, it is a magician's task to seek out such names, such words, such knowledge, no matter that peril.”

Rafferdy felt the flesh on his neck crawl. He thought of what Mrs. Quent had told him about her father, how she believed he had been doing magick when his affliction befell him. Had Mr. Lockwell learned something in his studies-glimpsed something-that his mind could not bear?

He realized that Mr. Bennick had turned from the book and was watching him.

”Are you well, Mr. Rafferdy? We have read only the beginning of the Codex of h.o.r.estes, but the chapters that follow address more directly what you said you wished to learn. I trust I haven't frightened you from the idea of continuing your studies.”

Rafferdy stood straight. ”Not at all. I've always thought it might be entertaining to be mad. Besides, I'm weary of azure and lavender and saffron. I'll look forward to discovering one of those heretofore never-glimpsed colors, and when I do I'll order a new scarf of that hue.”

”That I would like to see, Mr. Rafferdy,” replied Mr. Bennick.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR.

Y OU'RE THINKING TOO hard,” Dercy said. ”Quit trying to force it to change. Because you can't change it, not really. Instead, just look at it and see what you want to see.”

Eldyn frowned, staring at the pebble that lay on the table between them. ”Easy enough for you to say,” he muttered. ”I'm sure you could just wave a hand and turn it to gold.”

”Why settle for gold?” Dercy pointed at the pebble, and in an instant it was gone, replaced by a gem that caught the dim lamplight inside the tavern and spun it into glittering fire.

Eldyn groaned and leaned back. His head ached, and it felt as if his eyes were irrevocably crossed. ”It's hopeless. I'll never be able to do it.” He picked up his cup of punch to take a drink, then grimaced. The cup was empty.

Dercy laughed and scratched his short blond beard, his eyes glinting like the diamond. ”Oh you'll do it, all right. You'll do it because it's the only way you're going to get another cup of punch.”

”Why can't you just...?” Eldyn wiggled his fingers.

”I told you, it's your turn to buy a round. Besides, they've gotten suspicious of me here. The barkeep always bites the coins I give him to see if they're real, and I'm not that good an illusionist. At least not yet. Besides, with that angel's face of yours, they'll believe anything you tell them. You hardly need an illusion at all. The barest wisp of a phantasm will do. Here, this will help.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a copper coin.

Eldyn scowled. ”You can't buy a cup for a penny, let alone a whole pitcher.”

”No, but you can buy one for a piece of silver. The best lies are the ones closest to the truth, the saying goes. Illusion is the same. It's easiest when it strays only a little from what's true. The eye will see what it wishes to see; all it needs is a little encouragement.” He set the coin on the table and pushed it toward Eldyn. ”Go on.”

It was no use. Over the last several days, Eldyn had tried again and again to work an illusion at Dercy's encouraging, but he had failed utterly. He could still gather shadows to him with a thought, but that was all. How he had conjured the vision of his father in Duskfellow's graveyard, he didn't know. It had been a fluke, an accident brought on by drink and anguish and memory. There was no point in even trying.

Which was a shame. He had no wish to leave the Sword and Leaf. The evening was to be long, and his thirst was far from quenched. However, the last of his funds had gone to purchase another half month of room and board for himself and Sas.h.i.+e at the inn in Lowpark. He would have to look for work again tomorrow and take whatever he got.

It was not a thought he relished. These last days had been grand, and he had no wish for them to end. The day after Eldyn had escaped Westen, Dercy had arrived at the inn, grinning and brandis.h.i.+ng a fresh copy of The Comet. NOTORIOUS HIGHWAYMAN IN BARROWGATE, trumpeted the headline. And below that, Thief of the Murghese Gold Sure to Hang.

Eldyn had read the words again and again, hardly comprehending them. He could not grasp what this news meant.

”It means it is time to celebrate,” Dercy had declared.

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